In order to streamline office clerical work, or due to space cost for file cabinets or environmental considerations etc., there has long been a need to computerize slip processing to build a paperless document processing system. Thus, computerized workflow systems have been developed. A “workflow” refers to a series of flows of predetermined tasks stereotyped according to the contents of work. Management of such a workflow has recently been achieved as a feature of groupware.
An example of workflow systems will be specifically described with reference to an example of application processing. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing a flow of application processing. FIG. 14 is a diagram showing a conventional screen on a processing person's computer in application processing shown in FIG. 13. In application processing shown in FIG. 13, “Reception Process”, “Process 1”, and “Process 2” are carried out after a submission of an application, and “Process 1” and “Process 2” are described here as separate activities. This means that once “Reception Process” has completed, “Process 1” and “Process 2” may be performed by different persons in parallel.
First, when an application is submitted as shown in FIG. 13, Processing Person A performs “Reception Process” such as verifying entries. Specifically, a list of work items as shown in FIG. 14(a1) is displayed to Processing Person A, who selects an activity to process from that list. Then, a screen shown in FIG. 14(a2) is displayed to the processing person A, who will proceed to “Reception Process”.
When “Reception Process” is completed by Processing Person A, next “Process 1” and “Process 2” are allowed to be processed. Since Processing Person B performs “Process 1”, a list of work items as shown in FIG. 14(b1) is displayed to Processing Person B. Processing Person B then selects an activity to process from that list as described above. A process screen as shown in FIG. 14(b2) is displayed to Processing Person B, who will then proceed to “Process 1”. In the same manner, Processing Person C performs “Process 2”.
In such a workflow system in which a plurality of activities are processed in series, a “list of work items” is displayed to a processing person. Once a processing person has selected a predetermined activity and the activity has been completed, a next activity for the start of which is prerequisite completion of a predetermined activity becomes available for processing. Then the next activity that has become available for processing is added to a “list of work items” that will be displayed to a person able to process a next activity. Accordingly, the person available for processing selects a next activity and starts processing thereof.
Problems to be Solved by the Invention
In application processing shown in FIG. 13, “Process 1” may be processed by the same person as a person having processed “Reception Process”, i.e., Processing Person B who will perform “Process 1” can be the same person as Processing Person A who performed “Reception Process”. In this case, even if Processing Person A is going to proceed to perform “Process 1” immediately after completion of “Reception Process”, a list of work items shown in FIG. 14(b1) will be displayed to Processing Person A after completion of “Reception Process”. Thus, Processing Person A need to look for a corresponding activity through the list shown in FIG. 14(b1) and to select it again, which takes much time and effort.
It is also possible for both of “Reception Process” and “Process 1” to be defined and processed as a single activity in order to relieve Processing Person A from the burden of selecting a corresponding activity from a list shown in FIG. 14(b1) in the processing of “Process 1”. Then, “Process 2” that could have been processed by Processing Person C in parallel with “Process 1” should be started after completion of “Process 1”, which decreases total throughput. Moreover, in order to make such setting possible that each activity may be processed by either one person or more persons, applications for sequencing processes, for sending and receiving data, and for screen transition must be developed for each processing person. This could be laborious, or these applications may be too complicated to be developed.
In addition, in application processing shown in FIG. 13, processing both “Process 1” and “Process 2” by one person may result in higher productivity. For example, “Process 1” and “Process 2” may be set to be processed by one person for usual occasions, and once a person originally set to process both of the processes has become overloaded, “Process 1” and “Process 2” may be set to be processed by different persons. In such a case, in order that one person may perform “Process 1” and “Process 2” consecutively, a list of work items should be displayed after completion of “Process 1”, and a corresponding activity should be selected again by the person as in the above-described case. It is also difficult to eliminate these inconveniences as in the above-described case.
As such, in a workflow system consisting of a plurality of activities, when a plurality of activities that can be processed by one or more persons were processed by different persons as required, efficient processing was difficult to be achieved.
The present invention is accomplished to solve such technical challenges and it is principal object of the intention to provide a workflow system that achieves efficient processing.